Since boy-bashing is pervasively seen as OK in our culture, I wonder if it would be helpful to call it out by naming it with words that our culture DOES recognize as bad. So, if one person says "Oh, she knows how to take control of that boy!" to say something like "yes, now she needs to work on leading without being a bully..." And for the "yeah, they don't like the boys" comment, "Wow, not liking about half the children in the world is kind of prejudiced, isn't it?"

This is something I've heard too. From a blog I read sometimes, written by a super-conservative lady. She said her husband thinks men' eyes are drawn towards the crotch when a woman/girl is wearing pants, even when wearing a long tunic-type shirt. I asked my own husband about this and he thought that was pretty weird. I wish more people realized how much "modesty" is wrapped up in culture. For example, we live in a super-conservative part of Central Asia. Traditionally, women here wear baggy pants under dresses, but without underwear underneath. So if someone (especially someone older or more rural) were to see a woman with a long skirt but no pants showing underneath, they would picture nothing under that skirt at all .... Which is why it is fashionable and OK for a young woman to wear slacks with a lonnngg tunic-length shirt, but a skirt without pants is really, really immodest...

What kinds of rewards and mild consequences do you use with young kids (ages 6 and 5)? I'm trying to brainstorm some ideas. The issues I would most like to change: 1) rude, disrespectful speech to parents. A problem with our 6 year old dd. I've been responding with a firm (not angry) "That's not the right way to speak to me. Try again, please." Or something similar. And she responds well to this. But I wonder if there were a little more consequence if she would make a little effort to speak kindly/respectfully the first time. I think a mild consequence of something like, say, doing 20 jumping jacks would help. Other ideas? I don't want to use an extra chore because I don't want to make helping around the house be seen as any more negative, at least for now:) 2) complaining/arguing/purposely annoying me during schoolwork. For this, I think we could benefit from two jars with marbles, and moving a marble from the "sad face" jar to the "happy face" jar for cooperation and moving a marble back to the "sad face" jar as a consequence. And then a bigger reward when the "happy face" jar is full. Trouble is, I'm having trouble thinking of a suitable reward. We live in a third-world country, so, although we do fun things as a family, they take more effort and planning than they would in the States. The only easy-to-implement rewards I can think of right now are food things!

Our newborn daughter R is 4 days old and seems to be nursing well. She is starting to gain weight. This is our 4th child, and the others were breastfed as well. Two of our older children had reflux issues as babies and did much better with Zantac (ranitidine), meaning that one child continued spitting up but was MUCH less fussy on the medicine and the other child stopped projectile vomiting and just spit up and was less fussy. Both of those babies grew out of their need for medicine by 8 months. So, baby R has multiple episodes a day of being very fussy soon after nursing, and I'm wondering about reflux again. She does spit up sometimes during these times (sometimes through her nose - yuck!). I do have a pediatrician appointment scheduled for a week from now, so I could get advice then. Meanwhile, I see on-line that some people suggest that the mother cut cow's milk out of her diet. How, exactly, would I see if that helped? Cut out all dairy, or would small amounts be OK (e.g. a little milk used to make the casserole)? And how long would it take to see if that did any good? Thanks in advance!

I live in a (very) poor country in Asia, have lived there for over 7 years. In that time, I have NEVER heard of ANYONE, even the "upper class" people I know, traveling out of the country just for vacation or to see a different place. In fact, I have never heard of anyone traveling to another town just for vacation/traveling's sake, except for day trips or to visit a certain important shrine. People travel to other towns/countries to get better medical care or they travel to visit family. That's it.

So, are you not wanting an epidural, or just convinced that you won't be able to get one anyway? My first two births had some similarities to yours. First baby was also induced, then labor went so fast that there was no time for an epidural even though I wanted one. Unfortunately, after going all the way through labor, there was significant fetal distress and I had an emergency C-section with general anesthesia. (And, I will say that the pain I experienced in the hours after waking up from surgery was worse than transition pain! I was in a country that doesn't do such great pain relief...) Second baby was born exactly 3 hours after the very first contraction. Of course, (long story why) the second was also a vacuum delivery, so the pushing stage might have taken a little longer without that. Those two babies were also born in a country that uses the gas, and it was helpful, but not that helpful. BUT, my third was a longer labor. I had been 3 cm for weeks, then my first "real" (I always have lots of Braxton-Hicks in the last few months) contraction was at about 1 pm. Obviously slower labor than the second. Got to the hospital about 3 pm and still had time to get an epidural. It was WONDERFUL. Seriously, after the epidural I had NO pain all the way to 10 cm, by 7 pm. I actually felt so comfortable that I fell asleep for a little while:) The pushing stage took a full hour, and it was painful, but the epidural was still helpful. I think the labor, and pushing, was slowed by the epidural, but I was happy to have some pain relief. And, thanks to the C-section and vacuum delivery, it was the first time I had really been able to push, so it took me a while to "figure it out". Anyway, all that to say, this labor might be different from your first two!!! And, by the way, I'm 35 weeks with Child #4 and I'm not looking forward to labor again either… :) Best wishes to you and your little one!

I am trying to potty train our son who is 2 years 7 months. This kid can go an amazingly long time without needing to pee. For example, wetting his pants at 9:30 am and then not peeing again until 4:30 pm. During this time he drank 3 sippy cups of Kool-aid! Other times he'll pee after only 2 hours, so it can be anywhere in between 2-7 hours. It's hard to know when to take him to the potty! Any ideas? Here's some details: The weather here now is hot and dry (and we don't have AC). I frequently offer him drinks (water, Kool-aid) but he only drinks a little at a time or just says "No fanks":) In the past several weeks, I've seen some progress with potty-training: at first, he would REFUSE to sit on the potty, had no clue what was going on, and cried for diapers instead of underwear. Now he's positive about underwear, announces every time he wets his pants ("Mommy, pee-pee come out!") and knows that he will get a candy every time he does something in his potty. Over the past month he's had maybe 15 successes total, all because I just happened to guess right. I can get him to sit on the potty for 10-20 minutes easily as long as I sit next to him and read "Go, Dog, Go" or Curious George over and over and over…. He poops usually once in the morning and then once in the afternoon, but not at predictable times. Since he's not having many accidents a day (since he's not peeing much!) I have been keeping him in underwear most of the time as long as we're at home, diapers when we're going somewhere, or for naps. This has been going on for over three weeks. Thanks in advance!!

Do you have a hopper ball? The kind of big inflated bouncy ball with a handle that a kid sits on and bounces away:) Our oldest is very energetic and loved hers at age 4… and still does! For example: http://www.amazon.com/Hopping-Ball-15-Bounce-Hoppity/dp/B0030CH864/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1398871052&sr=8-6&keywords=hoppy+ball

Oh, sorry, I must not have been very clear. I KNOW that my kids can't evaluate whether clothes are clean or not, and I think it will be years before they can do so reliably. So I'm wondering if the most practical solution is for me (at the end of every long day) to pick up everyone's clothes off of the floor myself in order to look at them and put them wherever they should go, or if anyone has any better ideas. And, I'm very willing to do this every evening because I am very aware that just washing everything would be much more work. (Laundry is a challenge here: our electricity is very unreliable, I often have to fill the washer myself with buckets of water, and we don't have a dryer.) And, they are the ones really wanting to choose their clothes. I would like to figure out how to let them choose more often, for their sakes, not just mine. I need to remind myself that it's the end of a long cold season, and it will be much easier in the summer: a) they will only need to wear one layer a day (instead of 2-4 layers) and b) their clothes will be filthy every day from playing outside, so there won't be any deciding :tongue_smilie:

I am used to wearing clothes more than one day, as are our kids. And fortunately we live overseas in a culture where it is perfectly acceptable to be seen wearing the same outfit several days in a row :thumbup1: However, with little kids this is sometimes annoying. Anyone have practical advice for these "problems" that I have with trying to get kids to wear (not dirty or smelly) clothes more than one day? 1) Our two oldest (almost 6 and 4) would be plenty old enough to put their clothes in the laundry basket at night when changing into pajamas. But I really don't think they are capable of evaluating whether their clothes are clean enough to wear the next day (and then hanging them up or folding them neatly) or not (and then putting them in the laundry basket). So they end up just leaving their worn clothes in a pile on the floor each night, which feels like they're not learning to pick up after themselves. 2) When they sometimes can re-wear part of outfit, and sometimes not, I feel like I have to choose their clothes for them every day. "Your blue jeans got muddy yesterday, but you can wear your turtleneck again. Please get a clean pair of pants from your cabinet and get dressed." I would love for them to be able to choose their own clothes more, partially because I get tired of picking out clothes for three (soon to be four) kids, partially because I feel bad saying No to the child who says, "But, Mommy, please! I really wanted to wear my kitty-cat dress today! And I didn't get to wear it yesterday either!". 3) It often seems that we have a big pile of "worn but not yet dirty" clothes that I don't want to put back in with the clean clothes. For example, if one day they wear nicer, dressier clothes to church or something, and then the next day is sunny and they wear short sleeves, and then the next day happens to be significantly cooler, then that third day they end up needing to wear a third outfit, but the clothes from Days 1 and 2 are still lying around waiting to get truly dirty. :tongue_smilie: Multiplied by multiple kids equals a pile of clothes... So, any advice? Thanks in advance!!

Thanks for the feedback. Dialectica, I agree that the school is not ideal at all. I wish there were a more play-based option where I thought our children would be safe, but we haven't found one :sad: The are some advantages to going with the school in town where the kids are coming from the "richest" and most-academic focused families... I think it would be different for us to figure out a good balance between homeschool and local school IF the local school were providing any academics our kids actually need, other than local language. But there isn't any math happening (other than rote counting to ten) or content work (other than religious instruction, which is a different religion from ours), etc. But, I am delighted that they are finally picking up some more local language - hooray!! So, we'll keep this plan until the summer at least. Again, thanks for the feedback!

I am pleased to see the consensus that I can ignore all instructions to do daily calendar time :tongue_smilie: Thanks for the feedback!

Why does our curriculum recommend doing calendar time every day? Dd (almost 6) knows the days of the week and the months of the year and the seasons. She can easily answer questions like, "Today is Wednesday. What day will tomorrow be? What day was it yesterday?". I do see value in pulling out a calendar once a week or so and pointing out upcoming events and activities. So, if we don't do daily calendar time, will we be missing anything? Thanks!!

Our kids are age 2 (boy), age 4 (girl) and almost 6 (girl). This is mostly about the oldest. We are from the United States, but we have lived overseas for several years in a certain 3rd-world country. Although my husband and I are both proficient in the local language, our kids have not picked up much. We have tried multiple things to get our kids more consistent exposure to the local language and to local kids, and we really have not had much success, especially with the latter. It would be hard to explain what we've tried and why this and that didn't work, but let me just assure you that some of the pat answers (like play dates, or just hanging out with neighborhood kids, or going to local parks) are just not practical for our particular situation in this very underdeveloped country with a lot of restrictions for me as a woman and for local girls. However, this past month we enrolled our daughters in the "best" private school in town; they are both in the same sort-of kindergarten class. School is held 6 days a week, from 8 am to noon. The children have one recess outside, but the rest of the time they are sitting and learning by rote. There is a lot of focus on handwriting (different alphabet) and learning to recite poems. They also get daily homework (more handwriting). Their teacher speaks some English, but none of the other children do. Our children were intimidated at first, but now seem to be enjoying the interaction they are able to get with other kids. And I do think they are understanding more and more local language. So, while this school is far from ideal, it's meeting the need we had, and it's our best option at this point for local language learning. However, our kids come home tired and needing down time to just play without so much structure. Our oldest has just finished kindergarten (mostly MFW K) and I was hoping to start 1st grade (mostly MFW 1st and Horizons 1). This dd is reading fine for her age; she can read books like "Little Bear" easily. I think she is bright and I do feel a little guilty that we are not doing as much homeschool as we would if that was our only focus. I was originally planning to send our daughters to the local school 3 or 4 days a week and thought we could get some homeschool done in the afternoon and on their day or 2 off a week, but it's been hard to balance local school/homeschool/daily life/free playtime. If you were in a similar situation, with a young child, how would you balance going to a local school and keeping up with homeschool? Oh yeah, and the school year just started here, so I'm thinking about the rest of the calendar year, minus about 3 months off for the summer. Sorry this is so long!!

I recently started a thread on helping littles memorizing verses. Someone suggested looking at Desiring God's set of "Fighter Verses". Their website lists 70-something verses recommended for kids, "Foundation Verses", and five years worth of suggested "Fighter Verses". They also have a schedule for memorizing large chunks of Scripture over five years (all of Philippians, James, the Sermon on the Mount, Isa 53, and I forget what else). Great lists. I ended up downloading the Fighter Verses app for $2.99. Instead of finding it really helpful for this kids, I am really liking it for me:) It lets you schedule verses, add your own verses if you want to, quiz yourself (for example, putting in blanks for some of the words in the verse you are learning and gradually adding more and more blanks as you learn the verse), and keep track of which ones you've memorized, etc.